Today is the tenth day of the war, and today also saw the tenth hearing in Navalny’s case. Here is how it went.
The defense continued questioning witnesses—there were 11 of them today. All of them are regular donors to the ACF (Anti-Corruption Foundation), and they usually gave small amounts. The prosecution’s questions are the same day after day: above all, they want to know whether the witnesses were aware that Navalny had a criminal conviction when he was running in the presidential election. The witnesses replied that of course they knew—this information was never hidden and was publicly available. But it had no effect whatsoever on their decision to support Navalny as a candidate.
Just to clarify: by asking these questions, the prosecution is pushing the following argument—Navalny was convicted in the Kirovles case and therefore could not have been allowed to run in the election. Knowing this, he still raised money for the campaign and therefore misled people.
That is, of course, untrue. Navalny was indeed tried in the Kirovles case in 2013, but the verdict was overturned by the European Court of Human Rights. The Russian authorities then hastily staged a second trial—it was exactly the same as the first, and the 2017 verdict repeated the first one word for word. Even the spelling mistakes in the text were identical.
This is an obvious mockery of the law and of plain common sense—you cannot treat someone as convicted under a verdict that has already been overturned. More importantly, the Constitution was on our side. Under the Constitution, only someone serving a sentence in a penal colony is deprived of passive voting rights—that is, the right to run for office. All the other restrictions were invented by the Central Election Commission and picked up by other officials, and now by the state prosecution as well.
So there is no basis whatsoever for claiming that the donations were stolen. All the money that came into Alexei’s campaign went toward paying for campaign offices, regional trips, and campaign materials. We reported all of these expenses to the people who donated to us. The witnesses confirmed this in court today—they all received financial reports.
So over the course of three days, 28 people testified on Navalny’s side—seven times more than the number of staged “victims.” And of course, that is only a tiny fraction of the total number of donors who supported Alexei over many years and do not consider themselves deceived.
The next hearing will take place on March 10, and the defense will continue presenting evidence of Alexei’s innocence. After that will come closing arguments and the verdict. Most likely, it will be delivered a week later.
Share this video. YouTube has not been blocked yet, which means it is now the main source of information. Subscribe to this channel—you remember, this is where the truth is told. Subscribe to our new channel, Popular Politics—the link will be in the description. Right now, we are producing a nightly news program there about what is happening.
Free Alexei Navalny.